Gareth Edwards: Setting the record straight on lyrics

IT was a musical mystery which had kept fans guessing for more than 30 years.

Kate Bush fans had long argued over who it was the singer was referring to when she wrote the lines "he's here again, that man with the child in his eyes".

Few of them, however, would probably have imagined it was a toilet attendant at a mental hospital that had captured the then teenage heart.

The secret of the 1978 classic song was ended last week when Steve Blacknell - 58, married and no longer a lavatory attendant - put the original hand-written song-lyrics gifted to him by his childhood sweetheart up for auction.

It is expected the lyrics will go for as much as 10,000, proving there is an insatiable appetite for musical mystery - this is far from the first time that a song has inspired more questions then answers:

Bohemian Rhapsody (1975, Queen)

Freddie Mercury refused to explain the meaning of his rock opera, other than saying it was about relationships, and the band has always been protective of the song's secret, though happy to put forward ideas.

Brian May said the song contained veiled references to Mercury's personal traumas, while Roger Taylor insisted that the true meaning of the song was "fairly self-explanatory".

The truth seemed to come out in 2000 when a Persian leaflet which accompanied the Queen Greatest Hits album release in Iran stated that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. ?It didn't stop speculation however, and others suggested the lyrics were about a suicidal murderer hunted by demons, were Mercury's way of dealing with personal issues in his life at the time or, as Mercury himself was believed to have said, were simply "random rhyming nonsense".

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (1967, The Beatles)

The Beatles classic written by John Lennon is still believed by many to be a song about the hallucinogenic drug LSD, and despite the insistence of the group that it wasn't - Lennon stating that any reference to LSD was "purely unconscious" - the BBC still briefly banned the song from the radio.

The song was inspired by a nursery school drawing of a classmate painted by Lennon's son Julian, which he called "Lucy - in the sky with diamonds". This sparked a search for the Lucy in question, with many people believing it to be Lucy Richardson, a schoolfriend of Julian's.

It finally came out that the real Lucy was his classmate at a Surrey nursery school Lucy O'Donnell, who died last year.

You're So Vain (1972, Carly Simon)

Few other songs have sparked such a long-running search for the inspiration, with everyone wanting to know who was so vain that Carly Simon would demonise them.

The singer herself helped fuel speculation by refusing to name her muse, instead dropping clues.

The cutting lyric "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you" didn't stop Warren Beatty coming forward in 2007 to say "Let's be honest. That song was about me", and Simon has admitted Beatty was one of three men who inspired the song, with Mick Jagger and record producer David Geffen believed to be the other two.

Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991, Nirvana)

The song that launched Nirvana to global super-stardom is famous as much for its place in rock history as it's almost indecipherable lyrics. They were not helped by Cobain's slurred, growling voice, and one US radio station actually refused to play the song as they couldn't understand it.

When it came to the meaning of the song, it was a similar story, with Cobain initially saying it was about his friends and their teenage revolution, and then stating it was about his surroundings and his generation. Critics have suggested some of the lyrics actually point to it being about ex-girlfriend Tobi Vail - who wore the Teen Spirit deodorant - although Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl has suggested everyone might be wrong. "Just seeing Kurt write the lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, you just kind of find it a little bit hard to believe that the song has a lot to say about something," he said.

Hotel California (1977, The Eagles)

In the 1980s a Christian evangelist argued that Hotel California was in fact a hotel in San Francisco which had been bought by Anton LaVey, the founder and High Priest of the Church of Satan.

Another persistent rumour was that the hotel of the title was the Camarillo State mental Hospital. All of these suggestions were denied by the band, who insisted the song was about Los Angeles and the dark side of chasing fame.

The Drugs Don't Work (1997, The Verve)

Most people thought the subject of this song was obvious - singer/songwriter Richard Ashcroft's ongoing battle with his own drug addictions.

In fact the song was written in response to the death of Ashcroft's father, who had been on strong medication to prolong his life but suffered badly as a result of the side-effect.